What Five Minutes Of Silence Can Do For Your Brain

Sometimes five minutes of silence are enough to regain calm, balance, and temperance. Just a brief moment of peace, away from noise and conversations that do not stop and suddenly, our brain begins to work on another level. Thus, as various studies reveal,  humans also need silence to create new connections and brain cells.

The subject is undoubtedly more than interesting. All of us, in some way, sensed that enjoying a moment of chosen silence is an act with great therapeutic power. We say “chosen” because if there is something that various experiments have also shown, it is that subjecting the human being to a state of complete isolation and rigorous silence for days or weeks usually has adverse effects.

People are social beings and we need interaction and stimulus-laden environments to live, to grow. Now, just as we need those scenarios inhabited by dialogue, music and the rumor of sociability, our brain also craves its moments of silence. And it is not a whim, it is a physiological principle. As can be eating or sleeping.

In fact, we could say, almost without fear of being wrong, that between the different levels of Maslow’s pyramid of needs there should be silence between the most basic links.

Five minutes of silence and your brain changes

Can five minutes of silence really have that many benefits? The reality is that we do, and neither we nor any personal growth guru say it. A study published in the journal “Brain, Structure and Function” reveals this to us . The neuroscience of silence in the age of noise is having more and more weight and more relevance, to the point that tourism aimed at facilitating contact with this dimension is increasingly proliferating.

The famous “silence retreats” are already combined with those tourist packages in  countries like Finland, places that have ideal environments for us to fully embrace that stillness, that absence of noise, sounds and urbanity. However, before letting ourselves be carried away by these proposals, logic should be applied. It is not necessary to go very far to give that gift to our brain.

Silence helps us develop new brain cells

We live in a world saturated by decibels. The television, our favorite groups playing in our headphones when we go down the street, the traffic, the conversations, the piped music in the stores and the supermarket … We live in cities where silence does not exist, where sound guides life and our consumption.

Now, if we were able to enjoy five minutes of complete silence a day, several things would happen. One of them is that new cells would develop in the hippocampus. This brain area is related to our memory and emotions. The second is that these cells would allow us to think more clearly and connect better to our environment and ourselves.

Improve our sensitivity and empathy

This data is interesting. As we already know there are many areas of the brain associated with emotional sensitivity and empathy. One of them is undoubtedly the right supramarginal gyrus. Thus, and something that has been seen is that when this area is damaged or has little interconnection, our empathy is reduced. In addition, we become slower when making decisions and we show less interest in what is around us.

Enjoying moments of peace or allowing ourselves five minutes of silence a day improves the activity of the right supramarginal gyrus of our brain. Consequently, our ability to get excited and empathize is enhanced.

Less stress, better decisions

When our environment is excessively loaded with noise, the brain amygdala is activated. This small structure is like our detector of danger and threats, it is the one that interprets that there is a risk around us and that we must flee. Thus, and as striking as it may seem, loud sounds or even the simple noise of traffic is something annoying for this area, something to defend ourselves against. And therefore it generates a stress response by stimulating the release of cortisol.

In this way, we can already intuit what it can mean to give ourselves five minutes of silence. As a study published in the American Psychological Association reveals  , silence is not only an excellent way to reduce stress. Thanks to it we release serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin …

In addition, it improves our feeling of well-being and with it, we perceive ourselves more secure and focused when making decisions. Nor can we ignore its positive effect on our cognitive processes. Memory is strengthened, we focus our attention better, we process information more quickly and also, our consciousness is “awakened”. We feel more connected to the present and prepared for what it may bring us.

To conclude, as Friedrich Nietzsche said,  “The path to all great things passes through silence.” Let us therefore allow ourselves to walk through it more frequently. Let us learn to turn off the button of our hectic outer worlds from time to time to take a much needed walk through our inner universes. When we leave them, we will no longer be the same.